Vibration & Spectrum Analysis

 

Vibration analysis is a process that monitors vibration levels and investigates the characteristics in vibration signals. It is commonly conducted both as a vibration waveform versus time directly, as well as FFT amplitudes versus frequency spectrum.

In real world applications of rotating machinery, it is highly desirable to incorporate the frequency spectrum analysis (FFT) in addition to physical vibration waveform analysis.

A complex machine with multiple moving components will generate a mixture of vibration characteristics, which is a combination of vibrational behaviors from each rotating component. Therefore, it is difficult to use only physical signals to examine the condition of the critical components such as wheels, bearings, and shafts in rotating equipment.

Frequency analysis (FFT) decomposes the physical signal versus time and describes the repetitiveness of vibration patterns, so that the frequency components corresponding to each component can be investigated.

Advantages
– Real-time reaction to the change of unit’s overall condition
– Well-established processing and signal analysis methods/algorithms for predictive maintenance